ABSTRACT
On a variety of official documents, citizens are requested to state their race or ethnicity. Most people in the United States equate race with physical features. Perhaps the strongest evidence that race is not a biological fact but a social creation is the different rules for classifying people into racial categories across societies and the shifting rules for classifying people within a single society. The federal government’s attempt to categorize people into two broad racial groups is the most enduring theme in the history of the United States. Two broad racial groups are: white and nonwhite. The belief in the idea of racial purity is reflected in the absence of a mixed-race or multiracial category and in the absence of instructions to “check all that apply.” Sociologist Martha E. Gimenez points out that the race question is poorly constructed in that it offers respondents racial, ethnic, and national origin categories as possible responses.
